A bizarre incident in India happened wherein a group of monkeys decided to attack a health care worker before escaping with blood samples of COVID-19. Reports said that the monkeys were, later on, spotted chewing the stolen testing kits while resting in a tree.
Fortunately, the samples showed no signs of damage when authorities recovered them.
Attack of the Gang of Monkeys
Local media reported that the red-faced rhesus macaques snatched COVID-19 blood samples from four patients and fled the facility near the Meerut Medical College in Delhi. With one of them was spotted chewing on the sample kits reported by the Times India.
Rhesus macaques are found across Asia and are highly adaptable to co-existing with humans, most commonly seen in India, where they are considered sacred creatures and left undisturbed. They are listed as of species of least concern on the IUCN Red List and have a booming population in India that, in rural areas, some farmers are losing their crop out-of-control.
In 2018, in an interview with the Sky News, Ragini Sharma, a home ministry employee said that rhesus monkeys snatch food from people as they are walking, and sometimes tear file sand documents by climbing in through the windows.
They are outgoing and live in groups. But most of all, these monkeys are bold, extremely curious, and adventurous, which might explain why they stole blood samples.
Experts feared that while the monkeys are on the loose, they could have caused further spread of the virus in the local area. Luckily, they were able to recover the sample boxes and did not show signs of damage despite the claims that the monkeys had been chewing them in a nearby tree.
According to a report from The Guardian, Dheeraj Raj, the Meerut Medical College superintendent said that the samples were still intact and do not think that there is any risk of contamination or spread. The owners of the blood samples were tested positive of the coronavirus.
All's Well that Ends Well
The news about this bizarre incident only seems like a terrifying concept but has indeed happened in real life. The group of rowdy primates running amok with COVID-19 samples can be filed under "all's well that ends well" category as no virus has escaped, and the lab worker was unharmed.
If ever you happen to come across one holding a vial of a blood sample, it is still best if you run away immediately.
A senior biologist from the Tamil Nadu Forest Department has warned that the mutated coronavirus has an overwhelming impact on primate species and other wildlife that prey on them.
"The point is, we have very little understanding of the virus, and it is better to limit our interactions with wildlife till there is more research done on its effects on non-human primates and other animal species," he told The Hindu.
